milod Posted June 15, 2010 Share Posted June 15, 2010 Larry... Brought back some memories... <grin> m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HarrisonGibson Posted June 15, 2010 Share Posted June 15, 2010 I've got a couple of great more expensive guitars but I'm too chicken to play them out in the clubs & pubs for fear of getting robbed or denting one! So I've end up building up a small group of less expensive but great working instruments - my main giging instruments that work great are: A fancy Cratfer acoustic - tree of life, baggs pickup etc but only cost a few hundred pounds - my J45 stand in A Fender mexican strat 50's classic in 2 tone sunburst - £200 off ebay - I love it, its a good friend and looks right for my Buddy Holly tribute spot (yes I know I need a les paul for some non Buddy songs but I CAN ONLY CARRY SO MUCH) And a cheap but stunning looking £80 mandolin from the far east (Ok I've done loads of work on it fitting a pickup and getting it to play right but now its great) hummmmmmmmmm .... still love a Gibson F5 Fern though. If I played one instrument all night I'd be ok with using an expensive one but swapping and having instruments on stands I just don't want to do it! What is fab these days is that you can get gigable instruments for small money - when I started playing (a long, long time ago when cow hide glue was king and cats sold thier guts to ernie ball!) a £200 guitar would have been just playable and sound pants! a £100 guitar would have been virtually unplayable, now you look at Epiphones and Squires (keeping it balanced) starting between these figures and you have good usable instruments often only headstock snobbery stops everyone sticking with them throughout your career. Its great to have nice guitars but carry the thought that its not just the guitar (no offence orville or leo) its in the fingers - I once auditioned a guitar player who's fancy PRS was worth more than the rest of the bands gear but he was so bad he only lasted 1 gig! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikelc Posted June 16, 2010 Share Posted June 16, 2010 I went shopping for an inexpensive acoustic at GC a few years ago, my drummer and my 7 year old (two of a kind!) were with me. I was looking to spend a max of five to six hundred bucks. I have some pretty nice electrics (2 LP, 1 SG, Custom shop Melody Maker, 1 PRS, 1 Custom Shop Strat), so sound is important to me, and generally you get what you pay for. I started picking up various acoustics in that price range, starting out at the low end and working my way up, and nothing really grabbed me. Now I'm picking up $800 guitars that I have no business buying, and am about to give up. Then I see a nice looking Epi (AJ-200) on sale for about $300, and pick it up. As soon as I strum this guitar, my drummer looks at me at tells me, "that't the one!". A damn fine little guitar for the money. I've moved on a bit at this time (practice, practice, practice!), and I just ordered a Breedlove (the beloved Songwriter is way out of my price range), but I will always keep and appreciate my Epi. To be honest, I will always second guess myself for picking the Breedlove over an Epi Masterbuilt for the money, but you just gots to go with your heart. Also I live north of Seattle, so the Breedlove (Bend, OR) is kind of the hometown boy. Anyway, in my humble opinion, you cannot go wrong with the Epiphone guitars; damn fine guitars for the money, a good value. Rock on! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted June 16, 2010 Share Posted June 16, 2010 HarrisonGibson... I'm at least in the same general age group as you and I recall some of the most horrid attempts at calling wood and metal a guitar that I can imagine back in the 50s and 60s. Today's Epi is, IMHO, something that would have been considered "high end" in that time period. Nowadays on this forum some folks will say bad things about them that I think is bunk. Some is perhaps a "high end hubris" among those with the cash, some is simply that they don't remember how things used to was. <grin> I used to be that way. I remember looking for my first electric and considering the Melody Maker well beneath my dignity. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb in retrospect. OTOH, I also think that today we have a few problems with ignorant big-box type "music store" sales people, transportation, etc., that we didn't have 40-50 years ago that may make some instruments of all price ranges less desired by a knowledgeable guitarist. There also are so many more choices in terms of factors that influence how a guitar feels to a given player. I guarantee I'll feel more comfortable with a thin-neck, wide fretboard Epi than on a "retro" version of a Gibson with a 50s neck. Just me, maybe, but... So... I keep saying one should play an instrument before buying. I also think that "setup" may be among the more important things to stress on any price tag guitar today. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meanstreak Posted June 16, 2010 Share Posted June 16, 2010 Well, one thing's for sure, I'm a bit of a reverse-snob! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.